Bay area market going up?

[raptorduck]

At least in the areas I was looking in, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills (moving to RSF now), the report for September shows a turn around from a steady decrease in the market where prices have been steadily dropping and homes selling for between 90-95% of asking in recent months.

In September, homes sold for 105% of asking, and particularly in Los Altos (the lower priced area of the two with average/median of $1.9/$1.8 million) many had multiple bids. This particular market has 3.3 months of inventory.

I note that during most of this year sellers have been lowering asking prices, and are still lowering them.

While these areas are considered very upscale (like RSF, La Jolla, Del Mar, without the beach), homes are either very old and need to be torn down and rebuilt, or are farily recent custom mega homes, defined as built in the past 15 years (I don’t throw around the word Mansion carelessly, there are some up here if you got $20+ million to spend and you will get about 1/2 of what that will buy you in RSF). So people are either buying to rebuild or want turn key so if a turn key goes on the market, there are lots of buyers while the remodels/tear downs stay on the market longer.

I visited a home recently in another less “prestigious” town that was the nicest house for my taste up here I have seen. It was a custom home built on 1/2 acre with a golf course frontage. Spanish Revival/Mission mix, 5,000 sf, + 1,200 sf guest house, pool. That size is rare indeed up here. It was easily the nicest house in the neighborhood and the only thing that was RSF like in looks. While it is in the best school district in the state, the neighborhood is a hodgepodge of extremly old and delapidated 60-100 yr old ranch homes with dirt front lans and vans/trucks parked on them and garbage filled back yards and very blingy and expensive custom rebuilds. So your $4 million custom may be next to a house with 10 residents who take the bus to work.

Heck, my own development of track homes in San Jose (very Carmel Valley like) is surrounded by neighborhoods like that. That is what I liked about RSF and surrounds (and CV for that matter), every neighborhood was filled with nice well kept houses. Some need updating, but I did not see any tear downs. FBR was pristine accross the board. Some homes need updating, but they are all well kept. Impressive.

[JWM in SD]

Chirp,,,,chirp…..are you sure you are posting on the right board???

[JWM in SD]

Chirp,,,,chirp…..are you sure you are posting on the right board???

[Alex_angel]

Ummm, you are comparing CV to RSF? You like RSF because of the variety? You can’t even see the majority of those homes from the street since they are all gated and surrounded by bush. I think you may have had one too many bloody marys this morning.

[Alex_angel]

Ummm, you are comparing CV to RSF? You like RSF because of the variety? You can’t even see the majority of those homes from the street since they are all gated and surrounded by bush. I think you may have had one too many bloody marys this morning.

[raptorduck]

JWM. I posted the info thinking folks here may find it interesting to compare to other markets.

AlexAngel. I have toured 45 homes or so in RSF in the last few months and used to live in CV so I think I can compare them pretty good.

[raptorduck]

JWM. I posted the info thinking folks here may find it interesting to compare to other markets.

AlexAngel. I have toured 45 homes or so in RSF in the last few months and used to live in CV so I think I can compare them pretty good.

[Ex-SD]

raptorduck: From what I’ve seen in L.A., S.F. and S.D……..the $15+ million segment of the market seems to be immune from the bursting bubble because these people have big F.U. money. I’ve been following the S.F. marketplace and the $1.5 million and below segment is dropping in price and seeing fewer and fewer buyers.

Re. Alex_angel………….He goes through a number of posts with one set of logic (or lack thereof) and another number of posts with an entirely different mindset. He’s either a split/multi personality or a troll. Pay him no attention and he’ll find someone else to aggravate.

[Ex-SD]

raptorduck: From what I’ve seen in L.A., S.F. and S.D……..the $15+ million segment of the market seems to be immune from the bursting bubble because these people have big F.U. money. I’ve been following the S.F. marketplace and the $1.5 million and below segment is dropping in price and seeing fewer and fewer buyers.

Re. Alex_angel………….He goes through a number of posts with one set of logic (or lack thereof) and another number of posts with an entirely different mindset. He’s either a split/multi personality or a troll. Pay him no attention and he’ll find someone else to aggravate.

[Rockemsock]

Do you have price per sq ft? I know that looking at the median can be decieving as well as looking at other factors, days on market, etc.

It’s obviously possible that an area with only 3 months inventory could have good months here and there, but I don’t think you can look at that as being indicative of the broader market conditions. All the fundamentals suggest that things will be going down for a long time…because things are sticky on the way down, so having a surprise month here and there is probably not much of a surprise after all.

Take a look at REO’s this month…they are down from last month in SD county, but I bet that next month we’ll see things back on track to break records. That’s what makes tracking all this data so much fun…every now and then you get a curve ball.

[Rockemsock]

Do you have price per sq ft? I know that looking at the median can be decieving as well as looking at other factors, days on market, etc.

It’s obviously possible that an area with only 3 months inventory could have good months here and there, but I don’t think you can look at that as being indicative of the broader market conditions. All the fundamentals suggest that things will be going down for a long time…because things are sticky on the way down, so having a surprise month here and there is probably not much of a surprise after all.

Take a look at REO’s this month…they are down from last month in SD county, but I bet that next month we’ll see things back on track to break records. That’s what makes tracking all this data so much fun…every now and then you get a curve ball.

[stockstradr]

I visited a home recently in another less “prestigious” town …

San Jose is considered a less prestigious area of the Bay Area, and home prices are DROPPING here, but not yet as dramatically as seen in San Diego.

One data point I have is for condos in North San Jose, once priced at $310k, have fallen to $290k. This info came from co-worker who says he’s been watching the market very closely.

We will continue to rent, and let prices fall. We rent in the Willow Glenn area of San Jose.

[stockstradr]

I visited a home recently in another less “prestigious” town …

San Jose is considered a less prestigious area of the Bay Area, and home prices are DROPPING here, but not yet as dramatically as seen in San Diego.

One data point I have is for condos in North San Jose, once priced at $310k, have fallen to $290k. This info came from co-worker who says he’s been watching the market very closely.

We will continue to rent, and let prices fall. We rent in the Willow Glenn area of San Jose.

[raptorduck]

rockemsock: I agree with you. I don’t know where the market is going to go up here, I just reported the info for the towns I was looking in. In the two markets I mentioned actually, the under $1.5 million market has remained pretty hot because there are not many houses in that price range and folks wanting to buy an entry level house in those markets to get into the school system pounce on them. In the over $2M market in those areas, there has been consistant slow down until last month. But I still think that higher end market is softer than the under $1.5M market.

When we were looking up here, we saw a house in the nicest part of Los Altos that had an asking of $1.3M. It was not what we were looking for, but we wanted to put in an offer as an investment or flip because the price was unheard of in that area (it was a very small house, on a small lot, but along a golf course). It had just listed a few days earlier and we were told to get an offer in by 2pm that day. We could not, but it had 10 offers and sold for well above asking.

Indeed, the really expensive homes ($10M +) stay on the market forever no matter what and tend to be immune to a downturn.

stockstradr. We are neighbors, at least until I move to RSF. Did you see that house for sale on Dry Creek Road for $3.5 million? Also kind of RSF like. Expensive for this “less prestigious” part of the bay area. The other house I was referring to that was very large, is in Cupertino.

[raptorduck]

rockemsock: I agree with you. I don’t know where the market is going to go up here, I just reported the info for the towns I was looking in. In the two markets I mentioned actually, the under $1.5 million market has remained pretty hot because there are not many houses in that price range and folks wanting to buy an entry level house in those markets to get into the school system pounce on them. In the over $2M market in those areas, there has been consistant slow down until last month. But I still think that higher end market is softer than the under $1.5M market.

When we were looking up here, we saw a house in the nicest part of Los Altos that had an asking of $1.3M. It was not what we were looking for, but we wanted to put in an offer as an investment or flip because the price was unheard of in that area (it was a very small house, on a small lot, but along a golf course). It had just listed a few days earlier and we were told to get an offer in by 2pm that day. We could not, but it had 10 offers and sold for well above asking.

Indeed, the really expensive homes ($10M +) stay on the market forever no matter what and tend to be immune to a downturn.

stockstradr. We are neighbors, at least until I move to RSF. Did you see that house for sale on Dry Creek Road for $3.5 million? Also kind of RSF like. Expensive for this “less prestigious” part of the bay area. The other house I was referring to that was very large, is in Cupertino.

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